Hourglass
by Kaesteranya
Summary: It's only too easy to ignore the passage of time, but it cannot be done forever. Mood piece and my spin on something that's probably been done already. [Tseng x Rufus, sometime before FF7: AC]


_Now I don't propose to know everything about the Geostigma disease, so let me play around a little here. :3_

**Hourglass**

From the moment President Shinra had brought him back from Wutai and into the service of the Turks and the Corporation, Tseng possessed the uncanny ability to remove his emotions from any of his actions, his words, his observations. He knew they lingered there somewhere at the back of his head and heart and lungs, but most days he was able to ignore it. This was how he had survived the grueling curriculum and the discrimination of colleagues and instructors alike in the Academy. This was how he had risen from dirt to clouds in the Corporation hierarchy, becoming leader of the Turks.

The Geostigma challenged all of this. Moving through the slums of Midgar was like traveling through a fallout shelter, or worse, a week-old, fully stocked crypt. Recall the girl with the melted fingers. Recall the boy with one eyeball hanging from a muscled string. Recall the baby with the missing face.

For a time he was able to move through the day and witness all of this by pulling the shutters over his eyes and rehearsing to himself the old mantras on duty, honor, and commitment. Being a Turk meant being something beyond a citizen, common employee, a spy, and a SOLDIER. It would shame the force if their leader, so recently returned from the dead, was found kneeling by a gutter, dispersing his breakfast every time he was on a survey of the city for the President. For this reason he tried to politely disregard the signals of disease in his leader and let him continue his breakneck pace down the grand road to recovery of the Shinra Corporation and all of Gaia. Then one morning he walked into the President's office to find the young man curled up on his side and he knew that he could no longer ignore it.

Rufus' eyes remained focused on him the moment Tseng stepped into the room, challenging the latter to say something about the fact that for the third time this week his President was a crumpled heap on the floor by his bed. Tseng knew better than to respond to it; he would be playing right into the younger man's hands if he so much as twitched his eyebrow.

"You should have called me, sir."

"The day I'm dependent on any of you is the day I shoot myself."

The imperiousness was gone from Rufus' tone, leaving his words and voice cold. Tseng knew at that point that he was coming dangerously close to crossing the line with his president, but there wasn't the time to consider it. He would deal with the consequences later, if there were any.

A call to Reno and Rude cleared a path from the office to the front door of all personnel save members of the Turks; when the Geostigma had started taking its toll on him, Rufus had been quick to inform his personal task force that knowledge of his illness was to stay within their immediate circle. A Planet in shambles and a city in ruin did not need the one of its only remaining leaders struck down by a debilitating disease. Considering how much of a success they were at keeping the Geostigma a dirty little secret, doubtless people would be utterly shocked at the President's very sudden death if the epidemic wasn't stopped soon.

Tseng removed his thoughts from that trajectory and focused on the task of moving his President back to his residence in the first upper sector. Beside him Rufus coughed and tried not to lean on him for support as much as he could.

The President's bedroom was often associated with warmer events in Tseng's memory; he could no longer remember the exact point where that had ended and the nightmares in gauze and antiseptic had begun. Tseng wheeled Rufus inside, leaving the President on his own long enough for him to fetch the medical supplies from the cabinets. His superior would not look at him as he returned, and when Tseng reached out to bring him to the bathroom he brushed the Turk's hands away from him and walked there on his own. There wasn't any reason for Tseng to hesitate in the doorway or turn his gaze when Rufus stripped off his clothes; he had seen the younger man in various degrees of nakedness and at various ages over the years. He wondered if it was the Geostigma and soon perished the thought.

Ten minutes stretched themselves out into something that felt like an hour of leaning against the wall just beside the doorway, listening to the young man on the other side move as little as possible in the water to make sure he didn't hurt himself. Tseng lit up a cigarette, finished it in five. He was no longer used to smoking. Rufus' voice drew him away from having another one, his second in years. Sitting in the tub amidst all the white and teal blue tiles and mirrors, he couldn't remember ever thinking his President looked so small.

When Rufus reached out with thinning arms to hold on to his neck and bury his face into his chest, Tseng said nothing and did not move. He would pretend he did not taste the salt of tears on those lips. He would pretend that Rufus wasn't shaking and he would take it into himself so that know one would ever know. In the morning after and the days to follow Rufus would go on with his life as though the Geostigma had always been a small inconvenience that he had learned to mow over and Tseng lock away the memory of the other night in a place only he could reach, and he would not bother looking for it.


End file.
